The analogy is often used of certain large bodies being like the aircraft carrier that needs substantial time and space to complete a change of direction. Two years ago when attending the launch of the Government Digital Service (GDS) I had been most insistent that they adopted the good practice that was available in local government at that time, for given the conditions local government IT was playing under, with frequent changes of legislation and guidance from government most local authorities had, with their IT departments, maintained a focus on the citizen.

Observing from afar over Twitter the recent SocITM 2013 conference I could only observe that with the ascendance of the GDS, roles had been reversed and local government IT in the form of lots of boats like some Dunkirk rescue mission all strung together was having a great deal of trouble manoeuvring, whilst GDS had become the agile one.

This is obviously not a full and fair comparison between all local and central government as the on-going failures by the Department of Work and Pensions to implement Universal Credit in a timely manner confirms, and also that some local authorities have done great things, whilst some have largely disappeared.

The question is how does one turn around that string of little boats (they are in comparison to central government). Some people observing suggested joining a many together and then one would the budgets and labour force, but would one have the management? That is the tricky part – local authority senior management and the elected members have always wanted to steer their own boats however small and insignificant they are, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but change is needed. This is what I thought was going to come out of SocITM nearly two years ago as I took my redundancy, but it does not appear to have happened. I may have missed something but the fact that Mike Bracken of the GDS is still offering this week to work with local government, as I heard him say he would two years ago tells me something different.

Local government has had to cope with drastic cuts, redundancies and reorganisations galore since I left, but the bigger vision of turning the aircraft carrier seems to have remained a futile hope as budgets shrink further and staff disappear.

Call for Papers for a special issue on 20 Years of ETHICOMP: A Celebration

GUEST EDITORS

Charles Ess, Bernd Carsten Stahl

INTRODUCTION

The ETHICOMP conference series began in 1995. In 1995 the World Wide Web was a new phenomenon unheard of by most people. It was a time of initial experimentation with electronic government and electronic commerce. The dominant computing paradigm was still focused on mainframes, with networked machines starting to gain prominence. Personal computers existed but were expensive. Mobile telephones were the preserve of well-paid executives. Increasingly, however, the emerging characteristics and growing social consequences of computing technologies evoked and required ethical reflection. It was in this context that Simon Rogerson and Terry Bynum had the vision of organizing the first ETHICOMP conference in 1995 (Leicester, UK).

Technologies, their organisational, individual and social use and the resulting social and ethical consequences have developed rapidly. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now converging and diffusing into an ever-increasing number of social domains. ETHICOMP remains one of the main venues for the exchange of ideas about ethics and ICTs. Among the defining features of ETHICOMP are the explicit attempts to bring together people from different backgrounds from within and outside of academia with a strong interest in practice and policy. The ETHICOMP conference series furthermore prides itself in being inclusive, supportive and providing a friendly environment for new entrants in the discussion to voice their ideas. These distinctive characteristics of the conference series are due first of all to the vision and labour of its two leading figures, Terry and Simon.

During the nearly two decades of its existence, the conference has branched out from being a local event in Leicester to spanning several continents with the events occurring in places as diverse as China, Japan and South America.

Recently, Terry and Simon have stepped down as chairs and leaders of the ETHICOMP conference series and have handed over the responsibility to the next generation of scholars. This special issue celebrates the achievements of the ETHICOMP conference series, of the two individuals who have steered it, and the community of researchers, scholars and practitioners who have discovered and helped shape it as a place to develop their understanding and thinking.

TOPICS

In this special issue we want to look back on the discourse that has developed within and around ETHICOMP. This special issue will be linked to a dedicated track of the 2014 ETHICOMP / CEPE conference. Potential authors are encouraged to submit an extended abstract to the 2014 ETHICOMP track. The track will allow potential authors to develop their ideas further.

Possible topics include:

· Technological changes and resulting ethical challenges

· Themes of ethical discussion in ICT since 1995, both within and beyond ETHICOMP

· Personal insights, accounts or viewpoints that demonstrate the relevance of ETHICOMP and its two founders – e.g., Terry Bynum’s focus on “flourishing ethics” as rooted in the work of Norbert Wiener, Simon Rogerston’s attention to ways in which professional practice can become relevant in the ICT industry.

· Historical, bibliometric or other analyses of ETHICOMP content

· Likely topics of ETHICOMP conferences in 2035, i.e., what might current patterns of research topics and anticipated technological developments suggest as future directions for research and critical reflection?

The author (or a corresponding author for each submission in case of co- authored papers) must register into EM.

The author must then select the special article type: “20 Years of ETHICOMP: A Celebration” from the selection provided in the submission process. This is needed in order to assign the submissions to the Guest Editors.

Over the years I’ve been using Twitter, blogging and other social media I’ve noticed the reticence of some users, particularly from public bodies such as police, central government and arms-length government organizations to take part in a conversation. Locally, in York, I follow the police who both maintain a dialogue and make Tweets interesting to followers by adding humour (where appropriate), safety and security advice, along with road closure warnings. In contrast very recently, being unable to find a way to complain to Greater Manchester Police I tweeted my complaint with a strong hint of sarcasm, I obviously failed miserably when a day later @GMPolice made a favourite of it!

This similar approach has been used on the regional offices of central government failing similarly when they don’t even respond. I’ve got so use to the local council not responding to Tweets or emails that I now just don’t expect it. In contrast, some councillors (but not many) willingly maintain a dialogue or move it to email, whilst others might as well not bother having a Twitter account. I notice that a number of bodies such as the Environment Agency are encouraging managers to have Twitter accounts on their behalf, whilst the same individuals do not have a publicly available email account. I take this as a symptom of the risk aversive nature of such bodies, when they don’t want individuals appearing to speak for a ‘department’. The same people are, by large, also averse to holding a dialogue in Twitter but happily tell us the details of their day-to-day work (yawn).

A lot of this I take to being the absence of a good policy and training. If bodies are going to get themselves involved in social media they need to accept complaints and compliments by it, as well as posting interesting stuff, but less of the day-to-day drivel, please!

Today, my wife and I who live at the same address, received a total of FOUR envelopes from the HMRC relating to Child Tax Credits, in fact they duplicated each other to a greater of lesser extent but two were from Glasgow and the other two from Preston. After sitting down for a while and tracking back to paper work part related to a demand for overpayment for the year 2011 – 12 and the thicker duplicate wadge to the tax year 2012 -13. Unfortunately, the calculation for 2012 – 13 had hidden within it the amount being demanded for 2011 -12, whilst the 2011 – 12 amount supplied a BGC slip attached to send to their Bradford office. So four lots of postage, paper & machine time when one would do, if the system operated as it should.

With the reams of paper involved over the past few years that have taxed my mind in completing them (hopefully) accurately, I hate to think how a person with a lesser education would cope. We have paid the amount on the more threatening demand with a cheque since although an electronic option is available I’m not sure they could cope without the relevant bits of paper and I’m ensuring a paper trail. We will now await a demand for the remainder in due course.

I am mainly relieved that my son is past the age where Child Tax Credits apply now but we still have to battle on with the Student Loan online system that infuriates us all from the moment we log on.

If any government truly wanted to save money they would ditch these convoluted, time-wasting systems and find a way to collect taxes and pay benefits in a more organised manner. By this I am not supporting the massive waste of time that is Universal Credit, but making a suggestion to review all existing systems from the point of view of the end user and cut out all the unnecessary complexity that is over-engineered into them because computers permit it, and the neo-bureaucrats want it.

“Cloud computing is increasingly ubiquitous in the consumer and private sectors and with financial austerity there is pressure on governments to follow suit. However, the relationship between government and citizen is different to that of supplier and customer, despite the advocacy of New Public Management, particularly where the holding of sensitive data is concerned. The paper examines the potential issues of ‘cloud’ and how they may transfer to ‘government cloud’ (g-cloud), along with the potential problems pertinent to ‘g-cloud’ itself. There is an examination of the literature relating to security, legal and technical matters concluding with the considerations and principles that need to be observed prior to any major transfer of citizen data to a relatively new but still developing area of information systems.”

Whilst I have been largely silent on this blog I have continued with academic work, possibly more reading than writing, but have a couple of other drafts in process, along with what is hopefully a more profound work that may one day see the light of day.

Earlier posts

Earlier posts

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About me

The blogger is Mick Phythian, a Research Associate at De Montfort University in Leicester, U.K. and former ICT Manager at Ryedale District Council in North Yorkshire, England. He was also a founder member of the Local CIO Council and regional Chair of Socitm.

Any opinions expressed on this weblog are purely those of the author.

He is not the Great Emancipator! The Great Emancipator was President Abraham Lincoln. The blog is so-called because some people perceive e-government, transformational government or, heaven forbid, government to be the emancipator of us all...